Baja bliss: Tempura-battered grouper tacos are reminiscent of a sun-bleached Cabo surf shack. (photo by:

Gringo Star

José Pistola’s straddles Mexican restaurant and beer bar.

by Adam Erace

Happy hour was long gone at José Pistola’s, the tapas-and-tacos spot in the heart of Center City, but the scene was like a company holiday party heading rapidly toward an awkward Monday morning.

Oxfords were unbuttoned; khakis were wrinkled. Trench coats had been cast over barstools. Heels were broken. The stereo banged out Bon Jovi, and a copy-room couple sitting at the bar was sliding into second over empty margarita glasses, a longhorn skull fixed above them observing the scene in amusement.

José Pistola’s serves food, by the way, yet everything about it suggests a place better suited to putting an after-work load on rather than savoring a meal: ear-splitting music, low lighting, a voluminous beer list, stockbrokers smoking by the entrance, and no host or hostess to direct you where to go when you walk through the door.

Going upstairs is like heading back in time to Shampoo circa 1999. The narrow room of exposed brick pulses with sweaty bodies. Best are the out-of-the-way bathrooms located on the third floor, reached via a shady backdoor and a vertiginous staircase. I can’t even swing that sober.

Located in the old Copa Too, Pistola’s is the Irish Pub gone south of the border, and it’s easy to understand the draw for drinkers. Two bucks buys PBR, Yuengling and Bud during happy hour (weekdays, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.) and nothing costs more than $15. The ’ritas are decent, with chunky salt rims and sweet splashes of OJ, and the beer menu features more than 80 bottles with an oddly heavy Belgian bent. I like Chimay as much as the next guy, but it’s weird being in a Mexican restaurant where you can’t get a Dos Equis.

What you can get, though, is solid “Mexican” fare with gringo leanings. Presented on a pretty wooden tray, the whole chicken wings are straight Texas, glazed in sticky cayenne sauce and showered with peppery cilantro confetti. Nachos speak to the border towns along the Rio Grande. A high pile of guac manages to stay fresh beneath a deluge of shredded carnitas, refried beans, onions, pickled jalapenos, tomato, queso and sour cream. A heady breeze of Californication blows in from the Baja peninsula for the smoked swordfish and grouper tacos, which have all the tempura-battered goodness of a sun-bleached Cabo surf shack.

Pistola’s hews closer to the core of Mexican cooking with its simpler offerings like the tacos. Snuggled in soft flour tortilla hammocks, the tattered rags of pork are tender and moist, streaked with the surprise of unadulterated fat—the hallmark of good carnitas. Chicken is tamer but still tasty, in both the taco and the foil-wrapped burrito that’s so overstuffed with rice and beans, the tortilla envelope strains against its filling fat-guy-in-a-little-coat-style until it eventually falls apart a few bites in.

The empanadas hold treasures of shiitake mushrooms and queso-laced calabaza, a butternutty Mexican squash, inside deep-fried shells. Chorizo ignites sweet green-lipped New Zealand mussels in fireworks of spice. Dredged in flour spiced with annatta, coriander, garlic and cumin, the shoelaces of fried Spanish onion sound like not just another onion ring, but none of that promised flavor registers on the plate.

Save the empty calories for the creamy creme caramel with peaches, but skip the sweet nachos dusted with cinnamon and sugar, and served with godawful cherry-chocolate-chipotle sauce. The cherries have the metallic tang of canned pie filling, and the chocolate and smoky pepper don’t harmonize they way they’re supposed to.

José Pistola’s isn’t Acapulco, La Veracruzana or El Jarocho. The food has too much polish. The geometric plates are too consciously chic. The staff speaks English, and the flatscreens upstairs show basketball and Wii bowling rather than Telemundo game shows. If you’re looking for an authentic Mexican experience, go to Ninth Street. If you’re looking for tasty Meximerican and a shot at getting laid, go to Pistola’s. The cougars from accounting await.